INTERVIEW
A drop in salary or a layoff is the choice that Ryanair leaves to its employees, while the fleet of the low-cost airline has been grounded for three months due to the health crisis triggered by the Covid-19. "I have no problem using the word 'blackmail'," commented Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the boss of Medef, at the microphone of Europe 1 Wednesday. He evokes in particular a society "which is not French, with a culture of social dialogue which is not ours".
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"There are other solutions"
"It is not the right method, on the form it is not like that which must be done, nor that the law provides for it", notes Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux. In several countries, including France, Ryanair intends to reduce the remuneration of pilots by 20% and that of flight personnel by 10% for five years to avoid job cuts. "There are other solutions to preserve employment, in some cases there may be a freeze on wages over a fixed period, but it can only be done with the social partners," said the boss of Medef.
"You have to be innovative to try to preserve jobs", continues Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux. "Ryanair, like all airlines, is going to have weeks, difficult months because air traffic is almost stopped. We have to go around the solutions, it takes shared efforts, on the part of the shareholders, perhaps the state, and sometimes on the part of employees, "he concludes.